Battlefield is teacher's workbook

LAWTON, Okla. (AP) -- As a youngster, Jim Calaway used to sit in the back of the classroom and stare in wonderment at the world outside the nearest window. <br><br>Calaway, 55, no longer stares out a

Wednesday, March 22nd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

LAWTON, Okla. (AP) -- As a youngster, Jim Calaway used to sit in the back of the classroom and stare in wonderment at the world outside the nearest window.

Calaway, 55, no longer stares out a classroom window or wonders what he might miss beyond it. Nor does he silently sit in the back of a classroom.

Now he prefers to sit in the front of a classroom as an award-winning science teacher at MacArthur Junior High School. That's where he dreams up outdoor adventures like the ones heen visioned as a young student in the Los Angeles valley.

"I don't want people to take this the wrong way," Calaway humbly cautioned. "But I'm just trying to be the teacher I never had."

In doing so, Calaway might become the teacher no one will forget. Over the past two years Calaway has parlayed his tireless efforts into $60,000 in private grants for MacArthur and four other schools in the state's southwest.

His latest score was a $50,000 grant by Duncan's McCasland Foundation for a joint research project concerning the Wichita Village battle site in Rush Springs.

The little-known battlefield along Rush Creek was the scene of a U.S. Cavalry attack on a large Comanche encampment on Oct. 1, 1858. Fifty-six Comanche warriors and a handful of cavalrymen reportedly died during the violent charge.

But sorting out the historic details is only the beginning. By the time the last dollar is spent from the grant, Calaway figures the students involved in the project will be the definitive source on that 142-year-old story.

Students from Lawton, Duncan and Rush Springs are to collaborate on a project designed to produce several archaeological digs, a historical documentary, a Web page and a touring exhibit.

The crowning achievement will be a historical novel based on the research. The students will use scholarly disciplines such as science, art, history and English to finish their work.

"Amazing, huh?" said the enthusiastic Calaway, a finalist this year for the Science Teacher Award by the Shell Oil Co. "I keep telling these kids, 'You're solving a 150-year-old mystery.' "And look at how many students we're involving. At least 200 kids are going to get their hands on this project in one way or another."

So is one from Calaway's family. Jennifer Keller, Calaway's daughter and a Lawton High School English teacher, volunteered to oversee the project's historical novel. Keller has recruited 15 students to help write the project's grand centerpiece, a 150- to 200-page manuscript organizers hope to publish sometime late next year.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for these students," Keller, 25, said. "This is something they will never forget, a real hands-on experience. And when it is all said and done they will have a real sense of ownership."

For now, Keller said, they have a real sense of being overwhelmed.

Keller recently escorted two leading students in the project --Lawton sophomores Danielle Bishop and Chris Pettit -- to the University of Oklahoma's Western History Collection to do preliminary research. All were amazed at the sea of historical information at their fingertips.

"We just scratched the surface," Keller said. "I'm just glad I don't have any kids right now. But my students are my kids, and even though this is going to take a lot of time, I'm doing this because they'll remember it their whole life."

Bishop said she has written several short stories in an attempt to publish one in a magazine, but without success. Now she's writing the foreword for the battle novel. "This feels pretty good," Bishop said. "I've always wanted to write a book."

For now, Keller and her students have discussed telling a fictional story through the eyes of several "eyewitnesses" -- a cavalryman, a scout, a trader and a Comanche survivor.

Illustrations for the book will come from area art students.

"I think this is a good way to tell the story," Bishop said. "A lot of people would find an historical book boring. We want this to read like a novel. Hopefully, more people will read it and know about it. This is a story people should know about."

In more ways than one. "You won't find a lot of teachers who are willing to work that hard on their own time to find something this special for their students," said Keller, referring to her father. "He went above and beyond."